The ABCDE of Disputing Negative Thoughts

I think one thing that causes people to not be as successful as they would like to be is negative self talk and ruminating on past negative experiences. Negative self talk is like background music playing when you are going shopping or in an office building. It plays beneath the surface of our conscious minds and only when something happens to make us become conscious of it do we notice what we are telling ourselves.

Here is an exercise to help you deal with negative thoughts:

A stands for Adversity – What was the Negative Thought? Here’s where you write down the event or experience that triggered your pessimistic thoughts. Simple and matter-of- fact, with no associated thoughts or feelings, just like this: “I got a divorce” or “I got fired” or “I got downsized”.

B stands for Belief – What are your emotional beliefs about this negative thought? Write down the words you use to explain the adversity exactly as you say them to yourself or when you are venting where it is safe.

C stands for Consequences – What are the consequences of your belief? Write down the impact your negative thinking has: how do the words make you feel? What impact do your words have on your work, your enjoyment of life? Examples? “I feel defeated and lousy”; “I feel very, very scared that I will never find anyone who will love me”. “I feel cheated and lied to.

D is for Dispute – What is a rational challenge to your emotional belief, which is often less fact than attitude. Here are a few ways to experiment

• Factual Evidence. Challenge your pessimistic emotional beliefs with a list of facts. Are you truly so miserable now that you are divorced or working for a new employer? Does it really matter to you and your life now that your ex or your boss is a jerk, a narcissist or someone who simply does not care about you? How is your life better now than it was before the incident? List all the facts that contradict your pessimistic statements.
  
  One way to try this is to pretend you are a caring friend – how would she or he respond to your negative assessment of the situation? What would they tell you? Do you know a natural optimist? What would her point of view be?

• Deal with the Truth without Self-Judgment. Let’s say you’ve decided that your negative comments about yourself are true – you did marry a jerk and lived with him or her for many years. Now you have to face the fact that maybe, some of it was your fault? Maybe you did expect everything to stay the same and when it didn’t you went into a snit and acted like a martyr and now you see that was your own fault? Is the negative way you tell yourself the truth useful? No. Negative thinking doesn’t result in positive change. But true optimism isn’t sugar-coating, either. So look at the truth of your situation and plan to change it: do you need to let go of your resentment and pain related to the incident since all it is doing is keeping you in this loop?
  
  Well, yes! What else do you need to do to change the circumstances of your life? Do you need specific, written goals and plans for your future? Your weakness and human imperfections are normal, and you’re more likely to move forward when you accept them as being okay or identified and now you are working to improve them. When you’re not beating up on yourself, you’re freer to make plans for how you want to change and grow.

• Dispute with Action. Negativity tends to lead us to self-involvement and a form of narcissism, and it never hurts to distance ourselves from that by engaging in something outside ourselves, whether it’s helping someone else with a problem, or taking a break and simply doing something positive that makes you feel good.
  
  Research on happiness demonstrates that people who consider themselves happy are generally involved in ‘selfless’ activity that coincides with their core values and beliefs. Building those activities into our lives keeps our own pessimistic reactions in perspective.

E is for Energization – Read your disputes out loud. How do you feel when you hear the words? The measure of an effective disputation is the energizing effect it has on your emotional state. If your feelings haven’t changed, try again. Sure, this sounds like a ‘Catch-22’, but it’s true.